


Chu'ure

by rinrinalin



Series: Balance [2]
Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:12:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinrinalin/pseuds/rinrinalin
Summary: Arashi are Gods fallen among humanity, and only together can they bring the universe back into balance.
Relationships: Aiba Masaki/Sakurai Sho, Arashi Ensemble/Ohno Satoshi, Matsumoto Jun/Ohno Satoshi, Ninomiya Kazunari/Ohno Satoshi, Ohno Satoshi/Sakurai Sho
Series: Balance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883128
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

When next Ohno is born, he  _ loves. _

He loves his mother. He loves his big sister. He loves the chickens and the barn cats and the brook that bubbles just beyond their home nestled in the valley between two mountains. The world feels wrong to this Ohno too, but it only makes the things that feel right that much more lovable. 

Then war comes.

When it goes there’s nothing left to love. 

Recruited as a spearman in the Rock Army he learned no skills beyond battle and worshipped nothing beyond his next breath. It was a hard life, but it prepared him for the emotional gutting when he laid eyes on the moldering remains of his village. 

So much loss.

He stood there, on the knoll looking over the ashen remains. There had been rumors. He had heard things about terrible weapons in the enemy’s hands, but given them no credit. But this... it wasn’t as though the homes had been set aflame by human hands. The perfect blanket of tar and ash, made muddy from the recent rains, left him imagining molten fire thrown into the center of the village to explode, consuming all but the foundations in a perfect pentagon from the point of impact. 

The symmetry of the destruction is oddly beautiful.

Beauty and sorrow aren’t so far apart, he thinks. They echo in his mind, discordant and messy until he closes his eyes and discovers a rhythm. It fills his mouth and makes his tongue quiver and his lips part on a breath

and there is  _ song. _

The note that filled the air was so surprising he startled himself silent.

The quiet afterward is less lonely and so he tries it again, eyes closed as he sought to express his sorrow. The notes come, one after the other, churning with memories and pain and goodbye. 

  
  


____

  
  


Being on the losing side of a conquering army isn’t so bad, once the fighting is over, Ohno comes to realize. The Armies of Chaos had gotten what they came for-- the land and it’s resources. Now they needed the people of it to work them for their riches.

After leaving behind the desolation of M’uure, he had headed toward the coast. There would be certain work there for a former soldier. Maybe even on a boat. He’d once heard of ships the size of six cottages stacked atop one another. He’d not truly believed it then, but his time in the army had shown him that what was unimaginable could also be true.

The trek to the port city of Hal’sena would be weeks on foot. He made camp for himself along the dirt road that would meet up with the next village south of Mu’ure. From there, he hoped to find a few days work, enough to get his pack fully stocked and a few new bow strings, before taking the road that would lead him West, into the greenlands and then met up with the paved highway that led to his destination.

It was the best plan he had. The only plan. 

Survive.

____

Chu’ure is much like his own village once was. The town is laid out in a spoke and wheel pattern, with five main thoroughfares converging in the town common. Ohno finds himself heading there without thinking, following his nose to what he hopes will be a cheap food stall or two. 

He hesitates as the market opens before him. The gaping spaces between the scattered market stands and the strained lines on proprietors faces tells him all he needs to know. The Armies of Chaos may not have made it here, but few of the men and boys of Chu’ure had returned from the battlefield.

Either they would welcome extra hands or they’d be suspicious of outsiders. A grumble from his stomach spurs him on, surely they’d take his coin either way. His nose leads him to the back of the market and the food stall with the most appetizing scents. 

The stall he approaches has no line, but it’s oddly  _ bright _ in comparison to the washed out grays and browns of the rest of the square. He barely pays attention to the diminutive man sitting behind the stall, head bent over some object in his hands. Ohno lets his fingertips graze over the simple woven fabric covering the stallface with the name of the shop emblazoned across the front, “Kazu’s Baked Goods”. 

The texture was nothing special, but the color. Oh, damnation, the  _ color  _ was like nothing he’d ever known. The closest approximation he had ever seen was yellow, but even the prized roses, cultivated by his mother and her mother before her for their shades of yellow, orange and red were watery and bleak in comparison. This was golden and opalescent and seemed to undulate with its own light.

The yellow entrances him, illuminating a fracture of his soul. It makes him want to  _ sing  _ color. To reach out and grasp it in his hands and pull it  _ into  _ himself--

“Tablecloth’s not for sale, you know.”

Ohno blinks out of his stupor and looks up at the shopkeeper. A man of his own age and the same height, but where Ohno has developed the sleek muscles of a warrior, the vendor is lean and fox-like, his eyes crinkled in the corners and his mouth curved into an amused smirk.

“I sell bread,” he says slowly, his bemusement growing when Ohno is still blinking to catch up.

Ohno jerks his hand away from the cloth and shuffles his feet.

“Are you hungry?” He looks up and down Ohno’s travel worn attire and lingers on the spear strapped to his pack. His eyes narrow, “You  _ can _ pay, can’t you?”

The man doesn't actually wait for Ohno’s response, and turns away to tend the portable brick oven used to keep the breads warmed. Ohno has a coin waiting when he turns back with a steaming hand-pie wrapped in paper. “It's curry. Our family speciality.”

“Thank you, Kazu.”

“It's Nino, actually,” the man replies. “Kazu’s my sister. She does all the baking. I just work the stand.” A pause. “You’re not from around here.”

By the time Ohno realizes he’s expected to respond, he’s already got his mouth full. “Thiff s’werry goo’.” The man, Nino, grins wider and Ohno smiles with crumbs stuck to his lips. 

“I’m Ohno.”

____

  
  


With amusement, Nino directs him to the inn at the other end of the market (he’d completely overlooked it walking in) and tells him to ask for Ol’ Ms Taguchi, who’ll set him to work in exchange for a bed for the night. Ol’ Ms Taguchi turns out to be no older than thirty-two, if Ohno were forced to guess-- and he knew well enough not to-- and widowed early in the war. Her older kids were of an age to help around the inn and with the younger children, but there was plenty of manual labor that had fallen to the wayside. 

She prefers to be called Yumi and when Ohno tells her that Nino had sent him, she rolls her eyes and suggests Nino ought to sit on something sharp and mind his own business. She smiled in a strange sort of way that caught him off guard, “But I won't hold it against you.”

Yumi calls for  Oreyan, her oldest son , a boy barely past childhood with a thick mop of blonde that hid sullen eyes. She directs him to get Ohno settled and then to show him where to find the tools and shingles to start repairs on the leaking roof.

“If you do a good job,” Yumi says and the innocence in her eyes doesn’t match the slow molasses of her voice. “I’ll keep you.”

“I look forward to being kept,” he finds himself saying and bows quickly to hide the darkening of his cheeks. 

Her gentle laughter follows them up the stairs and Ohno smiles to himself. She had a pretty laugh. 

Oreyan pushes open the door to what turns out to be the dimly lit attic. “You can leave your things here. Nobody’ll get ‘em.” He says it with defiance, like he expects Ohno to accuse him of being a thief. 

“I don’t have anything worth taking,” he shrugs and unstraps the spear from his back and starts to remove his pack.

“Were you in the army or something?”

“Basalt Legion, 4th brigade,” he answers, shedding his over jacket and throwing it over the end of the bed. Roof work would be hot. “Spearman.” 

“But you’re short.”

He chuckles, “Easier to duck.”

The boy can’t decide if Ohno’s making fun of him or not, so turns and marches back down the stairs. “Better hurry. One of those leaks is over your bed.”

  
  


____

  
  


It’s hard work; and dirty. He stripped out of his shirt after only an hours’ work and by noon he’s caked with sweat and grime. Oreyan had begrudgingly helped Ohno haul the wooden tiles up to the roof and then gone about with chalk to mark all the desiccated ones to be removed. He’d proved agile and sure-footed, and Ohno was reasonably sure the kid had puffed up a bit when Ohno complimented his work. He hung around and watched Ohno work until his mother called for him from below. Then the boy scrambled from the roof and down the ladder like his pants had caught fire. 

It occurred to Ohno that perhaps a three-story roof was not the place for a nine-year-old. 

Alone, he finds a rhythm to the work. Pry. Crack. Schthick. Woosh…thunk.

Pry. Crack. Schthick. Woosh...thunk.

Every so often he stands and stretches, letting the ache of hard work ripple through his muscles. He casts his gaze across the township. The inn is the tallest of the buildings and gives him an excellent view of the market and the empty fields beyond the town. Grim and grey for as far as he can see. The full strength of the sun bleaches out what isn’t already encrusted with dust. 

All except for the golden-yellow of Kazu’s Baked Goods, glorious and bright as a single bloom in the cracks of a stone. 

When he pauses to gather another handful of nails mid-afternoon, his eyes immediately seek out the flare of color and find nothing. The whole village, slow and desolate as it is, seems further depleted by its loss. 

A familiar haunting, hollowness blooms in his chest and he sways on his feet at the suddenness of it. Empty. He was so painfully  _ empty. _

When had he first felt the void… go? Hours ago. 

_ How  _ had it gone?

The market. The fabric. Curry bread and Nino.

He is still standing there, examining the void within himself he’d never before this day been without when a head popped up from the ladder, “Ohno?”

He gives a distinctly unmanly yelp and quickly recatches his footing, though the nails in hand go scattering.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” The girl grimaces, “My mother sent me to bring you some water.” She proffers a tin jug in one hand, her other gripping the ladder with white knuckles.

“Careful,” he cautions, moving quickly to take the water. “You shouldn’t be climbing a ladder in skirts.” She’s older than Oreyan, just into her teens. 

“Well, you weren’t responding when I called up...” she trails off as Ohno gulps down the cool water, rivulets slipping past his mouth to cut through the grime on his chest. 

“Ah, sorry about that.” He glances back toward the market as if somehow Kazu’s Baked Goods could have reappeared when he’d looked away. “What’s your name?”

“Naoem. I’m the oldest,” She seems to recatch her tongue, “Oreyan is after me. Mama said you met him, but he’s disappeared again, just when there’s work to be done, of course. After him there’s Hiccup and Jaiya and Tiny,” she continues in the same breath. “Tiny’s just a baby still. They’re with grandma. You’ll meet her too. She’s the most amazing cook. You’ll love her food. Everyone does.”

Ohno finishes off the water and finds himself smiling. “I’ll try to remember all that.” 

He gestures down at the ground and she flushes again and startes back down the ladder with both hands. The chatter doesn’t stop, however. “Grandma’s been talkin’ about making her Precious stew, if she could find the right mushrooms and all. If we’re lucky we’ll be having it for dinner. Otherwise it’s just a pork belly stew an’ beans. You do like mushrooms, don’t you? Hiccup’s gone all picky over them these days, but mama says he’ll grow out of that. Maybe that’s true, I’ve never met a grown man who doesn’t like mushrooms.” Her feet finally meet the ground and she looks up at him imploringly.

“Huh?”

“Well, do you?”

“Oh,” he nodded. “Yes. I suppose I do.” 

Her smile is exuberant, though Ohno can’t figure out why she was so excited about his feelings on mushrooms. 

  
“Grandma’s sure gonna like you.”

That sounded more ominous that she probably meant it. 

“Think you can catch this?” He waves the empty jug in the air. She holds out her arms and he tosses it down into her. “Thank your mother for the water, Naoem.”

“You can thank her yourself when dinner’s served. The inn starts filling up after nightfall. Well, not so much filling up-- not like it used to. But people still come in. You’ll see!”

Ohno waves down after her, pondering the differences between the two siblings. He wonders if others had thought the same about himself and Ori. His sister’s face swam in his vision as he bends to retrieve the fallen nails. She had been the outgoing one. His mother liked to tell the story of how Ohno hadn’t spoken his first word until he was five because Ori always spoke for him.

Had spoken for him. 

A small part of him hopes they’d left the village. Maybe they’d been warned, evacuated and found succor in some remote farming town. The rational part of him knew better. The weapons of Chaos were not unleashed on empty towns. 

Perhaps rebels had taken refuge in Mu’ure, drawing attention to the sleepy village. They could have incurred the wrath of Chaos if Rock Army recruiters had been through again--by then they were so desperate conscription would’ve been more likely. 

Could his family have packed up and left beforehand? Would Mother have torn herself away from her precious roses in the face of death?

Torturing himself with such thoughts was becoming an uncomfortable pattern. Refocusing his attention on the roof work, he gathered tools and wooden slats, moving along the roof peak to start on the next spot Oreyan had marked out. The labor helps numb his mind, lets him ignore the aching emptiness in his chest that has been ever present, lets him push memories of his family from his thoughts. 

Pry. Crack. Schthick. Woosh…thunk.

Pry. Crack. Schthick. Woosh…thunk.

Pry. Crack. Schthick. Woosh…thunk.

“Hey! Watch where you’re throwing those things!” Ohno shades his eyes against the setting sun. The belligerent voice is threaded with amusement and Ohno finds himself smiling as he recognizes Nino. 

The emptiness he feels doesn’t change. The hole within him is still present. 

“You weren’t there a minute ago!” He calls down. Logically, in his opinion.

Nino’s laughter floats up.

The loneliness, though, he acknowledges as Nino ponders aloud the dangers of working in the dark and he begins to clean up for the night. The loneliness is different.


	2. Chu'ure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arashi are Gods fallen among humanity, and only together can they bring the universe back into balance.

After the roof was repaired, Ohno was put to work on repairs to the paddock out back of the inn. Then to clearing and reorganizing the cellar before Yumi declared his indentured servitude complete. This entitled him to free food and board for as long as he liked. Provided he would start paying soon.

Without knowing exactly how Grandma had produced three other neighbors in need of roof work and, if not exactly willing to pay him in coin, could help outfit him with food and supplies. His days were filled with hard work and the evenings with rowdy children and Grandma and Yumi and the inn’s patrons. 

And Nino.

Ohno found himself at Kazu’s Baked Goods every morning for their daily breakfast offering and again for lunch--always the curry bread. Nino, in turn, was a constant fixture in the inn come evening. He flirted cheekily with Grandma and bantered with Yumi. The children crawled all over him. And he never let Ohno out of his line of sight if he could help it.

It should have felt creepy. But if anything, it made Ohno want to be nearer. Nino tugged at him like a magnet. The attraction had nothing to do with the ache of hollowness in his soul. That pain only fled when confronted by the beauty of the tablecloth of Kazu’s Baked Goods. He’d asked where Nino had gotten it, what it was made of, anything to find out more, but Nino found his fascination a little too strange. He didn’t seem to notice anything special about the cloth at all.

Anyway, Ohno didn’t think it was fair for Nino to think his questions were strange. Nino was plenty strange too. From some angles he looked no older than Naoem and at others, there was a pearl of unfathomable wisdom in his eyes that bespoke lifetimes. He constantly deflected questions about his sister and family, was always fiddling with some gadget or another that he refused to show Ohno, and was more inclined to sit on the floor than to use normal seating.

Late one night, Ohno steps inside the inn after nightfall--it had taken him extra time to convince Ms Wada that he already had a meal waiting for him--and he’d failed. He’d been fed and fussed over for an hour after finishing work on her chimney. He marks Yumi heading into the kitchen where undoubtedly Grandma is reigning over her stew, and Naoem, serving a platter to what he guesses is another traveler renting a room for the night. 

He skips over Oreyan and Hiccup, the tow-headed boys bent to some mischief on the stairwell and relaxed incrementally when he spotted Nino near the fire with Tiny and a trencher of food. On the floor, of course. 

Crossing the room, Ohno kneels in front of the toddler, peering with interest at the mash of potatoes and stew that is her dinner. “What do you think, Tiny? Yums?”

Her cheeks are still full of baby fat and tiny dimples appear when she scowls and shakes her head, dark curls bouncing with emphasis. 

Nino scoops a spoonful of the mash and holds it up imploringly at Ohno, “I bet Ohno likes it,” he dances the spoon through the air and aims for Ohno’s mouth.   
  
“Yum. Yes please,” he plays along, one eye on the little girl as she gapes. 

“Mine!”

Ohno can’t help but laugh as the spoon freezes right before his mouth. 

“But you didn’t want any,” Nino tells the little girl mournfully. “You said.”

“Mine!” She uses an impossibly small hand to grab Nino’s and pull it away from Ohno and toward herself. “Mines dinner!” She opens her mouth like a baby bird, still tugging.

“I guess,” Nino pretends to think it over. “It _was_ your dinner first.”

Ohno sighs heavily, “I suppose that’s only fair.”

Nino shoves the mouthful of food into Tiny’s mouth while he has the chance and she accepts it without fuss. “Yummy, right?” She makes a face that Ohno can’t help but laugh at, but still reaches for the spoon and makes a small fist around the handle to feed herself.  
  
From Ohno’s observations, that meant more would end up on her clothes than in her mouth. 

“I’m going to get cleaned up,” he says, deciding to retreat outside the spoon-throwing distance. He knew Nino would be there when he returned. 

“You’d better.” Nino reaches out with one finger and drags it down Ohno’s cheek. He shows him the dirt on his fingertip. “It’s rude to say anything, but you smell worse than a funeral bog.”

“It’s the smell of hard work.” 

“And Ms Wada, if I’m not mistaken,” He arches a brow and Ohno knows what he’s thinking. Somehow, without meaning to, Ohno was attracting the attention of every widow in Chu’ure. Before the war, at home, he hadn’t paid much attention to girls or they to him. Most were spoken for by the time Ohno had developed any interest, and his mother hadn’t had the resources to secure him a betrothed. 

“She wouldn’t let me leave,” he pouts.

“It must have taken inhuman strength to tear yourself away,” Nino replies seriously. 

“I should be commended.”

“Or a medal, at the very least.”

Nino hides his laughter behind his hand, “Go. Go wash up. Grandma won’t feed you looking like that.”

Ohno heads for the stairs, side-stepping the boys. Naoem notices him for the first time as he’s ascending and waves frantically. “Welcome home, Ohno!”

He waves back and quickly disappears upward. 

It isn’t just the widows.

\-----

“What’d you think it is?” Ohno asks hours later, a second dinner filling his stomach and Yumi’s homebrew warming his tongue. He points at his cheek, “The scar?”

“That makes the women all caca over you?”

“Mmm,” he takes another swig and no longer winces at the burn. 

At some point in the evening, Nino had decided he wanted to see the stars. He hadn’t asked if Ohno would follow but seemed to trust that he would. 

And he did. All the way up to the roof above Ohno’s attic room. 

Nino’s shoulder leans companionably against his own and he makes grabby hands at the bottle.   
  
“Tiny’s rubbing off on you,” Ohno waved the bottle out of Nino’s reach.

Nino delivers a magnificent pout, his lips curling in a wave of impossible sadness that has Ohno so distracted that the other man is able to snatch the bottle with ease. 

“Ha!” Nino takes a gulp of homebrew and grimaces. “Probably. Women like heroes.”

Ohno snorts, “I’m not that.”

“You made it out alive,” he says it as if that’s explanation enough. 

“I know.” Ohno tries not to remember the aftermath of battle. The bodies he’d crawled over. The one’s he’d hidden beneath.

Nino nudges the bottle into Ohno’s hand and he takes a long drink.

“You’re alive too,” Ohno points out when he can speak again.

Nino’s mouth twists into a smirk and it’s almost as captivating as the pout had been. “What makes you think I haven’t had a taste of them already?”

“Grandma likes you.” 

“Grandma likes paying customers,” he retorted. 

“She’s a good judge of character,” Ohno says and leans back to gaze up at the night sky, the clouds refusing to part for a glimpse of the heavens. “Where were you?” He knows Nino will understand what he means.

Nino settles back as well, close enough that Ohno can feel his body heat along the length of his right side. “Would you think less of me if I said I was hiding?”

Had Ohno known what he’d face in that war, he would have hidden too. 

“No,” he answers softly.

“What will you do next?” Nino changes the subject. “Do you like it here in Chu’ure?”

“For now.” He was comfortable enough, well-fed, and working hard enough that in another few weeks he’d have enough to restock his supplies and then some. “The company’s good, anyway.”

“Don’t let Naoem hear you say that, it’ll go straight to her head.”

“Don’t even suggest it! I sleep with one eye open in case she tries to sneak into my room.”

“That’s not what you have to worry about,” the wickedness in his voice gave Ohno warning. “It’s when you’re washing out back.”

Ohno groaned, “How do I--what even--how can Yumi--”

“Maybe if you stop washing the stink will drive them away?” Nino’s tone was far too innocent to actually think he was trying to be helpful.

“That’s it. Yes. I’m doing it. No more soap and water. No more laundry. Just dirt and sweat and baby food.”  
  
“I told you that was an accident. She couldn’t have aimed that well.”

“I saw it in her eyes, Nino.”

“So you keep saying,” he laughs. 

“She gets the same look in her eyes you do.” Ohno’s mother had tried to raise him to be polite, but he blurts out his next thought despite himself, “Is she yours?”

“Tiny?” Nino chuffs a dry laugh, “No, no. I met her father once, though. He was a right asshole. Yumi’s been getting on well enough without him or the husband before him.”

“Oh,” Ohno grabs Nino’s hand and points up at the sky. “Look.” The clouds have parted, a pocket of starlight suddenly visible in the gloom. He sighs, comforted by the smattering of lights that glittered overhead. 

The hollowness within him fled.

“Do you know this one?” Nino’s voice is a whisper now.

“Mmm?”

“The constellation.” 

“I don’t think so,” Ohno tilts his head, trying to find the constellations he knows in the stars above. 

“It’s called Arashi,” he holds up their joined hands and points into the clouds, drawing the lines of the constellation. “Mountain and Wind,” he says as he traces them out. “One of the old gods. A storm to counter Chaos,” he trails off.

“I’ve never heard of this God.”

“An old God for a reason,” Nino says softly with a forlorn sigh. 

Ohno squeezes his hand.

“When I was in the army,” Ohno says thoughtfully, “There were lots of religions. I met a whole outfit once, from way up in the Mercian wildlands, who claimed their God demanded they fight to preserve his existence. Every fallen soldier passes over to his army in heaven.” 

“To fight some more? That’s bleak.”

“Mmm.” Ohno thought so too. 

“What do you believe?” Nino asked, still examining the stars. “Were you brought up in the Church?”

“Mama made sure I went to temple, like all the other kids.I liked it well enough, but it just always seemed strange to me.”

“Worshiping a bunch of invisible people in the sky. What’s so strange about that?”

Ohno thought about the clay walls of the temple and the slate gray of the benches and only the narrowest of windows to let light in. The priest’s droning words about finding proof of Kiah's divinity in grace and knowledge, evidence of P’omina’s presence in fealty and justice, and examples of P’olori’s intervention in the mortal realm in everyday luck and cleverness had never felt like _enough._

“Well,” he says after a moment. “They’re up in the sky and we’re always worshipping inside the temples.”

That made Nino laugh for some reason. 

“If the Gods made the sun and the stars,” he continues on because he does indeed wonder, but it also feels good to make Nino laugh. “And the earth and the sky and the oceans and the mountains and the plants and all the animals... wouldn’t it be better to pray nearer those things? The only thing the Gods didn’t create were walls and roofs.”

When Nino stopped laughing, he sat up and took another drink from their shared bottle, “You make a lot of sense, Ohno. A lot of sense.”

“There’s so many beliefs out there. All of them can’t be right,” he adds, tipping his head so he can look at Nino’s profile. 

The smattering of starlight limns his features in silver, leaving shadows to fill in the rest. Ohno traces the lines of Nino’s face with his eyes, mapping the soft dip in the line of his jaw. 

“Maybe none of them are,” Nino offers after a few beats of silence. 

Ohno just waits, thinking about the way the light kisses the curves over Nino’s cheekbones, the color of marble and just as smooth. 

“Maybe we’re all just stardust drifting in the wind,” he sighs again.

“Makes as much sense as any other religion I’ve heard of,” Ohno smiles when Nino catches him staring. “What do we call it?”

“Mmm. Temple of Stars.”

“Stardusters,” Ohno offers with as solemn an expression as he can manage.

“Starists,” Nino’s eyes narrow in playful challenge.

“League of Star Followers.”

“The Duster Philosophy.”

Ohno tries to hold back a snort of laughter.

“The Way of Star Sweepers.”

“Stardustism.” Ohno screws up his brow in thought, “Stardusty-ism?”

“Pilgrims of Dusty Wanderings.”

“The Church of Dirty Windies.”

Ohno broke first, their laughter bursting loudly into the empty night until Yumi marched out from the kitchen and declared her roof off-limits to drunken louts.


End file.
